Mark Van der Merwe
PhD Candidate
University of Michigan
Biography
I am a Roboticist building robot learning systems informed by model-based reasoning for perception and planning in robotic manipulation.
I am a PhD candidate in Robotics at the University of Michigan, advised by Dmitry Berenson and Nima Fazeli. I also spent time at MERL working with Devesh Jha.
Before joining Michigan, I was an Intern at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory working on the Perception Systems team. I worked on the proposed Mars Sample Return project. I graduated with my Honors Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science from the University of Utah in May 2020, where I worked with Tucker Hermans. During my undergraduate degree, I also interned at Mila under the supervision of Liam Paull.
News
- Paper accepted at RA-L 2026 (here).
- Paper accepted at CoRL 2025 (here).
- Paper accepted at RA-L 2025 (here).
- Paper accepted at ICRA 2025 (here).
